Oracle Expands Its Linux Base

So how is Oracle doing with its Oracle Unbreakable Linux? Pretty well.
According to Monica Kumar, senior director Linux and open source product
marketing at Oracle, there are now 2,000 customers for Oracle's Linux. Those
customers will now be getting a bonus from Oracle: free clustering
software.

Oracle's Clusterware software previously had only been available to Oracle's
Real Application Clusters (RAC) customers, but now will also be part of the
Unbreakable Linux support offering at no additional cost.

Clusterware is the core Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) software offering that enables the grouping of individual servers together into a cluster system. Kumar explained to
InternetNews.com that the full RAC offering provides additional
components beyond just Clusterware that are useful for managing and
deploying Oracle databases on clusters.

The new offering for Linux users, however, does not necessarily replace the need
for RAC.

"We're not saying that this [Clusterware] replaces RAC," Kumar noted. "We
are taking it out of RAC for other general purpose uses as well. Clusterware
is general purpose software that is part of RAC but that isn't the full
solution."

The Clusterware addition to the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support offering is
expected by Kumar to add further impetus for users to adopt Oracle's Linux
support program.

Oracle Unbreakable Linux was first announced in
October 2006 and takes Red Hat's Enterprise Linux as a base. To date,
Red Hat has steadfastly denied on its quarterly investor calls that Oracle's
Linux offering has had any tangible impact on its customer base.

In 2007, Oracle and Red Hat both publicly traded barbs over Yahoo, which apparently is a customer of both Oracle's
Unbreakable Linux as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

"We can't comment on them [Red Hat] and what they're saying," Kumar said. "I
can tell you that we're seeing a large number of Oracle customers who were
running on Linux before coming to Unbreakable Linux. It's difficult to say
if they're moving all of their Linux servers to Oracle or not."

That said, Kumar added that Linux customers are coming to Oracle for more
than just running Oracle on Linux, they're also coming with other
application loads as well.

"Since there are no migration issues we do see a lot of RHEL [Red Hat
Enterprise Linux] customers because it's easy for them to transition," Kumar
claimed.

Ever since Oracle's Linux first appeared, Oracle has claimed that it was
fully compatible with RHEL and it's a claim that Kumar reiterated.

"In the beginning, people had questions about how does compatibility work, but
we have been able to address all those questions," Kumar said. "In the least
15 months, Oracle has proved that we're fully compatible and that we're not
here to fork Linux but to make it stronger."

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